Humans possess many
traits that philosophers and scientists agree set us apart from other animals. Characteristics
such as language, self-awareness, and specifically, our ability to empathize. I
am an animal lover, and do believe that animals have the capability to feel
various emotions and display personalities, however, I definitely do agree that
human experiences of feelings and emotions are extremely complex and enigmatic.
Since true emotion is hard to quantify and gauge in experimental settings,
emotional studies are difficult to reinforce with the scientific method. Nonetheless,
there are many studies have been successfully conducted and several hypotheses
supported.
In
class we studied that empathy may originate from imitation. Singer et al (2004)
showed that when participants were presented with an image of another person in
pain, some areas of the brain activate even though there was no physical pain
caused to the participant. But what happens when our emotions are put to test
in social situations?
In “Using
Empathy to Use People: Emotional Intelligence and Manipulation”, Jamil Zaki of
Scientific American, highlighted two very interesting studies on empathy. Zaki circled
the idea that the two elements of empathy can be intercepted from coming
together and forming the textbook idea of empathy – the ability to be affected
by and share another’s emotional state, and understand their perspective. Based
on papers by Sara Konrath, and Yuki Nozaki and Masuo Koyasu, Zaki suggests that
cognitive empathy, the understanding of another’s emotions, and emotional
empathy, the sharing of these emotions, is disrupted when the idea of
manipulating the other person is implanted.
It is close to impossible
to study one emotion in isolation in a social situation. Humans are so complex,
each of us uniquely wired, seeing the world in different ways, establishing our
own schemas, and ultimately experiencing emotions in very distinct manners. It is interesting to read about studies that show subjects collectively displaying one type of behaviour based on emotions.
You have such an interesting blog. Thanks for sharing. I'm a self-help blog author and reading blogs is my hobby and I randomly found your blog. I enjoyed reading your posts. All the best for your future blogging endeavors. Please keep in touch with me in Twitter, @selfhelpnemonik
ReplyDeleteHumans are very complex. It is insane to think about how different everyone is. In this post were you talking about people using empathy to manipulate other people or is it a manipulation in itself? I always looked at empathy as a good thing, without it one would be considered sociopathic. In order to be truly human one has to understand another human's emotions. At least that is how I look at it.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you about the animals. Animals most certainly have emotions. Whales, elephants, dogs, dolphins, and apes have all been studied and have shown various emotions toward certain situations. Emotions are extremely complicated, but to see other creatures have them is just fascinating. I'm sorry this has nothing to do with the blog, but you mentioned animals and I love them so I had to comment on it.
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